1,000 Fights

 I've wrote at least 1,000 fights. That is no exaggeration. I have quite literally wrote over 1,000 fight scenes. Now in all fairness, I am using fight scene somewhat loosely, as I am including Yugioh duels when I was a fanfic writer, and I am including jousts and fights with rules. But overall, there is no doubt I have written over 1,000. 

1,000. 

That number never really got to me before until today. 

Uh, so this isn't gonna be a "real article" where I talk about stuff after copious amounts of research where I quote a hundred different books, and that's because, that's just not honest. That's an act. I'm gonna tell you just what I personally think is the most important stuff, and I'm not gonna organize my thoughts, as much as vomit a stream-of-consciousness.

I certainly don't think my fight scenes have ever really been that good and there's a lot I look back on and go "this could have been better", and I always thought I'd be better. But no. I don't think experience alone is enough, and I've learned a lot from studying as opposed to just doing. 

I could explain what makes a fight look cool, but that isn't the most important thing. The most important lessons I have learned are:

Number One: Fights Need to Matter 

Immature writing is writing something because you feel like a "fight" needs to be in that slot, because you feel there hasn't been enough action. 

But, I've also fallen into the trap of "let's write a fight scene to show how cool this character is, or establish this character". That's just not a good idea because there's only one reason for the scene, making the scene very shallow. 

Every fight needs to be about something bigger. Ideals, progress, character. Oh Cyras and Rosod are trying to see who's cooler isn't interesting. Cyras and Rosod fighting under the theme of "what makes someone smart" is more interesting. What's better? Having knowledge of every strategy, or having the knowledge to adapt. Knowing how to play a situation, or knowing how to play a person?

 

Number Two: The Fight Needs Story

The fight needs to develop and have a story. I call some fights that have some story beats but go nowhere with any of them "scrambled eggs", as in going all over the place. 

 Like, the fight starts off by establishing how A has a sword but B manages to get rid of the sword and starts kicking A's shin out, and A has a weak shin so he starts to fall. But then he starts beating up on B but B is beating up on A. Boring as hell.

Start off with hero winning or getting upper hand, but villain shuts them down quickly but the hero figures out how to win. Back and forth is just back and forth and isn't very inspiring. Figure out the "key" of the fight. 

-Maybe A has a weak shin, and B is exploiting the weakness. Is A gonna survive with his superior power, or fall to the weak shin.

 

Number Three: No Wasted Motion 

Every attack, every strike, has to advance the fight in some way. Or else you just end up with "everything goes well and then the end comes by". Like, how many vapid fights have you read wherein nothing really matters and then the end comes by. No move stands out, nothing creates a visceral reaction. 

There needs to be hits that just leave characters breathless. 

Underneath this, a reaction must come from being hit. Punches hurt. The reader has been hit in the head, punched in the gut, choked, and kicked in the nads. They know what those feel like, so why are your characters standing up like nothing happened. 

To me a bad fight looks like this: 

Swillow rushed Wasting before he sent out a blast of water. Swillow sidestepped and threw a fireball. Wasting caught the fireball in a whip of water, and circled her. Swillow launched herself for the throat of Wasting. Wasting sidestepped her and threw another whip of water meant to strike her side. 

Swillow stepped back, lowering her head, and summoned a wall of flames to evaporate the whip. Pushing forward, the black wolf pivoted around Wasting and shot another fireball, but the blue wolf sprung only to catch a bit of the blast. He stumbled a bit, and shot forth. 

As Wasting's claws came out, he caught Swillow's muzzle, leaving a thin red slice of blood. Swillow shouted. Wasting slashed repeatedly. Swillow dodged most of them but she was running low on breath.

Wasting swirled and rotated, but Swillow bucked his legs out from under him. Wasting rolled away, then smacked her across the face, so Swillow sent another fireball at him from close range. Wastng staggered back, and Swillow bucked him in the face . . .

 

So what makes this a "bad fight"? 

Scrambled Eggs - what's going on. Is the whole point that Wasting is really fluid in movement? Is there a focus on Swillow's power? No, there's just a back and forth, without any progress. 

Nextly, this is just words. How they feel emotionally to each part, how far they'd put on the edge, isn't addressed except for in the "running low on breath". All that is is a way of telling the audience "oh she's getting clapped." But there's no real "proof" of that. 

Also, the fight is just kinda "paragraph" chunks, not very segmented.

 What is the area?

Okay, but what would make this a good fight? 

Swillow rushed Wasting, her paws pounding against the brass, but he sent out a blast of water. She sidestepped, a ball of flames lighting up in her paw, that she launched at him close-quarters. 

Eyes widening, Wasting manipulated liquid from pipes, and they burst. A whip of water caught the burning red fireball, creating a violently hissing steam.

From the steam, Swillow launched herself into her brother's chest, head smashing into his ribs. Wasting tried to swallow a breath, but instead tumbled across the floor, his side smacking the metal wall. 

As Swillow jumped at him, Wasting rolled out of the way in a manner allowing him to stand on all four, before he snapped at her with another whip of water . . . 

So in the above sample: There's a vaguer sense of scenery. My thought is they're in a close-quarters hallway of a steampunk factory, but also there's more of a sense of Swillow rushes in at Wasting and relies on her heft, while Wasting mostly dodges and throws waterballs. 

And obviously I could improve on that even further, but that has a lot of the notes I've got as to what makes a good fight. 

Anyway, yeah, 1000 fights, here's to 2000.